A family consists of people who are socially-related to one another. An exam of such a social relationship might be marriage or cohabition.  Kinship means connections between people that are blood relationship. An example might be that of a mother and child. Marriage is an important concept when talking about family life in our society. A hausehold is group of people who have a common residence. There is not necessarily any family or kinship relationship between them. In general, the legal union of two adults people. However, cohabitation is an increasingly popular choice. Marriage in our society tends to be of serial monogamy type. But in other societies, various forms of polygamy are practised.

We know a family structures: extended, nuclear, single-parent and reconstituted. Extended families: this type of family structure generally consists of three or more generations living in same household. The nuclear family consists of two generations of family living in the smae household. Family contacts amongst kin are usually weaker and less frequent thah amongst members of extended families.

Single-parent families involve a single person plus children. The precense of this family structure can be attributed to three main factors:
- An increase in the numbers of people divorcing
- Pregnancy outside marriage.
- The death of marriage partner.

Reconstituted families (step-families): consequence of divorce and remarriage or cohabitation.